When one looks at Mexico’s standing in the various international competitiveness rankings over the past few years, two things emerge clearly: one, the economy is performing below international benchmarks; and two, it is losing ground, slowly but surely. This has long been cause for concern among policy-makers and analysts, and a host of proposals to address specific aspects of the situation has accumulated. But no clear, coherent and – perhaps most importantly – widely-shared strategy has yet been articulated to address the problem.

This may be changing. The past months have seen an increasing number of voices insisting on the importance of competition for competitiveness, growth and poverty reduction. Domestic think-tanks such as the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO) and the Private Sector’s Center for Economic Studies (CEESP) – both funded by business associations – have added their voice to the World Bank, the IMF and the OECD. The president, Felipe Calderón, has repeatedly emphasised the promotion of competition as a key element of his administration’s economic policy.